Moments
by Jessi Knight
Summary: A collection of mini-stores: Stef and Lena's 2nd date, a morning when Mariana loses her cell phone, Stef and Lena waking up Friday morning, June 26th, and hearing about the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, some scenes from around their wedding, and more...
1. A New Day

**"A New Day"**

Friday morning, June 26th, 2015.

* * *

Lena Adams Foster blinked her eyes open and tried to think. She'd been dreaming, but now she just had that kinda tip of your tongue feeling about it. She sighed, left the world of dreams behind, and enjoyed that it was quiet and that she had the rare treat to lay there in that silence and think about exactly nothing whatsoever of any importance.

A rare luxury, that's what you'd call it.

Stef stirred a little next to her, Stef's hand on her belly sliding it's warmth up a few inches. Lena snuggled closer to her a bit and leaned her head in her wife's direction, letting her mind wonder.

She imagined she was in Catalina right now, Stef by her side like she was now, the two of them sleeping in to an unheard of hour. It was the weekend... they were staying at some bed and breakfast neither of them had ever _heard_ of before, and she hadn't a worry in the world.

Then Mariana screamed about as loud as Lena had ever heard her and Stef sat up like a bolt out of the blue.

"Where is it, what's... what's going on...?" Stef blinked, looking around in utter bewilderment.

Lena laughed softly to herself, she couldn't help it - she'd never seen Stef _look_ like that before, not as long as they'd been together, not as long as she'd known her. She'd thought she knew every way Stef could look by heart, but, she guessed, this proved there were still a few she hadn't seen yet.

"Honey, it's okay. It was just Mariana." Lena told her, sitting up and wrapping her arms around Stef from behind, laying her head on her shoulder. She'd been awake, and, while, yeah, it was loud, she'd been able to tell easily from long experience with her daughter's ways that it was an excited scream, not any other kind. "Nothing's wrong, she's just..."

"Being the charming, lovable, vibrant daughter we know and adore?" Stef ventured blearily, fighting a yawn.

"I'd imagine so..." Lena replied, letting her eyelids fall about halfway closed and smiling to herself a little, leaning up to her wife more.

"Well, alright then." Stef said, rubbing her eyes. "What time is it anyway?" She asked.

"Little past seven I think." Lena answered absently.

Stef yawned. "Time to get up then."

Lena noticed the sound of a door opening and footsteps and then there was a hurried knock on the door. "Moms, wake up!" She called. "You _need_ to hear this!"

Stef laughed and got up off the bed, Lena crossing her legs and hunching her back a bit, watching after Stef as she went to open the door for their daughter. "Alright, what's all-" Stef was cut off by the quickest zero to hug land speed record Lena had ever seen.

"Omygod, you're totally married in Georgia now!" She told them, backing up from Stef to go jump on the bed with Lena and hug her too, the two of them tumbling back on the bed. "And Texas, Arkansas, anywhere! I mean, in the country I guess." Mariana told them, sitting up.

Lena got back up to sitting too and looked at Stef. "They ruled?"

"They totally ruled!" Mariana answered. "Well, five of them did, the other four, not so much..." Mariana's smile was completely infections. Just then Callie came to the door, smiling indulgently at Mariana's display. Jude followed close after, Brandon a bit further back as he emerged from his room still looking half asleep to find out what the uproar was about.

"What's going on?" Jude asked.

"I think... the Supreme Court just federally legalized gay marriage?" Stef asked, looking between Lena and Mariana for conformation.

"Damn right they did." Mariana said. "We totally need to have a party or something." She looked over to Lena. "Right?"

Lena laughed just a little. Wow was that ever a good feeling. "Yeah, I... you know, that actually sounds like a perfectly reasonable response right about now." She replied, trying to wrap her head around what she'd just heard.

Stef came over and sat next to her and they hugged and Lena kissed her. "Best Friday morning news ever, don't you think?" Stef asked softly.

Lena smiled and sighed. "I do feel lighter somehow." She said, confessing the simple truth of what she felt inside.

* * *

(end)

next: "The Missing Cell Phone"


	2. The Missing Cell Phone

**"The Missing Cell Phone"**

10:37 am, Saturday, April 6th, 2013

* * *

"Sometimes, I really don't get you at all." Mariana accused her brother as she searched the living room for her cell phone.

"What? What'd I do this time?" Jesus asked as he got up from the couch to get out of her way.

"Oh, you know what you did." Mariana replied distractedly, kneeling down to look between the cushions. "Don't bother denying it."

Jesus sighed. "You know, fine, whatever. Be that way." He turned and walked towards the kitchen, intent on finding chips or something.

Mariana made a loud aggrieved sort of groan. "Sometimes having a brother is just so impossible." She lamented to herself and the empty room as she got down on her hands and knees to look under the couch next, having had no luck upturning the couch cushions.

"I heard that, you know." Jesus called out from the other room.

"Good!" Mariana called back throwing a pillow in the general direction of the kitchen, lamenting that there was no chance it would actually hit her target. Usually, she and her twin got along fine, really great even, you know? The last week though, he just kept doing things. Annoying things. This was just the latest. And he seemed to be just completely determined to act all oblivious boy about all of them. Really annoying.

The phone wasn't under the couch. She felt tired all of the sudden and sat against the couch on the floor and laid her head back on the askew couch cushion. "Life is so unfair."

Footsteps next and Mariana looked over to see one of her moms come into view. "Oh, hey mom."

"Hey yourself." Stef Foster replied, coming over and moving the coffee table out of the way a little so she could sit cross-legged on the floor next to where her daughter was. "So, I'm sensing there's a problem of some kind? Or did you just decide that you want to be the Tasmanian Devil when you grow up and this is all your less than subtle way of practicing for the day you encounter Bugs Bunny in real life?"

Mariana giggled a little. "Sometimes I forget how you're good at jokes." She said, raising her head from the couch cushion and sitting up straighter. "I'm sorry, about, you know. This." Mariana told her, feeling kind of sheepish all of the sudden and realizing she might have taken her phone search just a little too far.

"It's okay. The world's an unfair place, I seem to recall someone saying. I'll just have to live with it, right?" Stef replied easily. Privately she wasn't really that happy about it, but she had enough mom experience to know that you had to pick your battles. You only had so much credibility, really. If you used it on the small stuff, you kind of blew your chances on the trust front. Trust was key. You could never have enough, and it was always a battle to keep what you had where a teenager was concerned. Which Mariana was. She'd be 15 next month, in fact. Where did the time go?

Mariana smiled. "I'll clean it up, I promise." She told her.

"And I appreciate that." She replied. See? Now there's where it paid to bide your time and be an easy going mom sometimes, Stef quietly congratulated herself. She knew she wasn't going to beat Lena in the 'cool mom' competition, not that there was a competition like that really, but she had aspirations of at least narrowing the gap a little more. It had been kind of a shock to her when she'd first realized the gap existed. It had with Mike too, actually. So she knew the role, but, somehow she'd thought it would be different with Lena. It was different though, just not as different as she might have thought it would be. At least not about this. It was just, tough calls had to be made sometimes. Thankfully not today though. "Want to tell me what's wrong?" She asked.

"Lost cell phone." Mariana replied simply.

"Have you tried calling it?" Stef asked.

"Gee no, I never would have thought of that." Mariana said softly, looking accusingly towards the kitchen and wishing mildly dark things on her brother's head again. "Um, sorry, yes." She looked back to her mom. "It's not charged, so it won't ring." She told her, feeling the defeat.

"And I take it you somehow think it's your brother's fault that it's not?" Stef asked.

"It is!" Mariana countered. "It totally is."

"Why?" Stef asked.

Mariana sighed. "Well, see, I left it charging last night, over there where I normally do." She pointed over to a lamp stand that conspicuously had a bicycle helmet on the floor next to it.

And so the mystery was coming into focus. "Let me guess, you think the helmet did it?" Stef ventured.

"Well, the boy who put the helmet there anyway." Mariana replied.

"Any proof of the boy's culpability in the matter?" Stef asked, using her mad cop skills. That's what they called it, right 'mad skills'?

"It was on top of the charger when I went to get my phone this morning." Mariana answered. "He's guilty all right, don't doubt me on this mom."

"Uh-huh. And the lost phone happened how?" Stef asked.

"I lose my phone sometimes!" Mariana answered. "It happens. I'm more careful about it when I'm at school or whatever, but I get, you know, distracted by stuff."

"Uh-huh." Stef replied. "So, where'd you see it last?"

"It still had some charge in it, and I had to talk to Lexi. She's coming over later, you know, for the project?" Mariana told her.

Her daughter making a book report on 'To Kill A Mockingbird' sound a lot more important to the fate of the world than Stef suspected it actually was. Most likely she was more looking forward to the fact that Lexi was coming over than what she was coming over for anyway. Teenage girls. She had been one herself at one point, hadn't she? She liked to think so anyway. It seemed like such a far off country sometimes though, didn't it? "The book report, you mean. Why didn't you just use the land line?"

"I don't have her number memorized." Mariana answered.

"So, you could have looked it up on your phone and written it down, you know." Stef said.

"Oh... I hadn't thought of that." Mariana admitted, feeling kind of dumb now. Blind spots happened though. You know, to everyone. You shouldn't feel bad about them, she believed that.

"Well, now you know for next time." Stef replied. "So, what happened with the phone next?"

"Oh, um, right. Well, so, I talked to Lexi for a while about stuff, and the charge went out." She said. "Then it was breakfast. I um, well I don't really know where it went after that. I think I put it in my pocket or something maybe? I... I don't really know. I meant to put it back on the charger, honest." She told her.

"Have you looked in the kitchen?" Stef asked.

"Yeah..." Mariana answered.

Lena came in then. "Mariana?" She asked. "Oh, hey there." Lena laughed a little and smiled to them, meeting her wife's eyes a moment. "What are you two doing down there on the floor?"

"Planning phone retrieval strategies, if you must know." Stef replied with an easy smile.

"Oh, well, funny thing that." Lena said, holding out Mariana's phone in her hand.

Mariana gave a yelp of excitement and got up off the floor, grabbed the phone and hugged Lena. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You rock, moms." She said, going over to grab the phone charger. "I'm putting this in my room today, okay?" She said protectively over her shoulder, holding the phone to her like it was a baby bird that had fallen from it's nest. She really did love that she had a cell phone now, Stef was aware. "Don't worry, I'll put it back before bed." She rushed out of the room and up the stairs. It was a house rule that the kids couldn't have their cell phones in their rooms after 10 pm.

"Just remember to clean up. Soon!" Stef called after her.

"I will! Don't worry!" Mariana called back.

"When she says 'don't worry' that's when I worry the most." Stef said jokingly.

"Did you just quote Pokémon?" Lena asked.

"What can I say, the line kind of stuck with me somehow." Jesus and Mariana had liked to watch Pokémon at one point. It was inevitable that you picked up some of the language, being a mom. Still, Pokémon had been a blessing, comparatively. She was convinced she probably still had a mild case of P.T.S.D. from all those Power Rangers episodes Brandon had watched as a boy. Japanese children's programming was a bad thing. That, she would not be dissuaded upon.

"I'll bet." Lina replied, coming over to her and offering Stef a hand up.

Stef took the hand and got herself up. "So where'd you find it, anyway?" Stef asked curiously.

"Clothes hamper." Lena replied, pulling Stef in for a little of a kiss.

"Mm. Figures." Stef replied, smiling and looking into her wife's eyes. Days like this, you know, just the normal ones, it struck her just how lucky she was.

Lena kissed her again, a little longer this time. "I was going to make tea?" Lena offered.

"Sold." Stef answered, letting Lena take her hand and lead her towards the kitchen.

There was a medium size crash involving something metallic from that direction before they got there though.

"Sorry. I'll fix it!" Jesus called.

Stef shook her head and Lena giggled just a little bit.

"Once more, into the breach, dear wife?" Lena asked.

Stef laughed. Sometimes she forgot how Lena was good at jokes.

* * *

(end)

next: "Second Date"

and leave a comment if you want to, I'd love to hear from you


	3. Second Date

**"Second Date"**

Tuesday, June 11th, 2002  
Anchor Beach Community Charter School

* * *

The waves were a soft, steady soundtrack as Stef Foster looked out over the ocean. There were the obligatory sounds of civilization in the background as well, indistinct and long familiar. Her eyes were on the far horizon where the sky met the ocean.

"What am I doing?" She asked herself so softly no one would have been able to hear unless they'd been standing next to her. No one was occupying that particular position at the moment... but, somewhat presumably, someone would again, soon.

It was still a little surreal to her, not that she wanted to admit that to anyone in particular besides herself. It wasn't a bad surreal... a remembered flash of Lena Adams's smile crossed the landscape of her memory and she couldn't help a small, completely genuine smile coming to her own lips in response.

No, not bad at all. Really... really wonderful, actually. But also... scary as hell sometimes, when she really thought about it. Another thing she wasn't about to say out loud... to anyone.

Behind her was a school, the one she'd just recently enrolled her five year old son in. The one where Lena worked as the vice-principal... they'd met in the parking lot where her car was right now. They'd met, Lena had smiled to her, and... whether she'd realized it fully at that moment or not, everything had changed... or, it felt like that now anyway, even though she knew, objectively, much of her life was the same now as it had been before that day, before that smile. But it still _felt_ changed.

Less than a week after that smile, she'd told her husband Mike that they were done and that they had to get a divorce. The very next day, she'd asked Lena Adams out on a formal date. Her heart had been racing a mile a minute, and the _second_ the words had left her lips she'd instantly wished she could take them back, certain somehow that she'd made a fool of herself.

Lena had smiled and said yes though, and that 'yes' had made her feel better about everything, about life as a whole, than she'd felt in... she didn't know how long.

Their first date had been awkward and fun and romantic. Flawed, but that kind of flawed that somehow also managed to be better than perfect ever could be. Or, at least that's how she remembered it. It might just be because she was... well, probably in love with this woman. They'd known each other nowhere near long enough for her to have any business thinking something like that, let alone saying it, but there it was. Oh, she wasn't _going_ to say it, to admit to it, at least not until they had a lot more than one measly quirky first date under their belts.

In that week before she'd worked up the courage to take that last step and tell Mike she wanted a divorce, she'd read all kinds of literature on this subject - maybe too much. She'd read enough to know, even more than she'd known previously, that she was lucky to have been born in a time where there _was_ literature like this to read, but she'd also read enough to know that getting her hopes up as high as she, admittedly, already had, was a damn stupid thing to do.

She'd gotten dangerously close to kissing a fellow cadet at the academy once - a woman, Lindsey Donovan - after they'd both had a little too much to drink one night. Apparently that was a cliché. The point was, that's all she had to her name as far as previous lesbian 'cred' - or, in other words, Lena was her first. The books all said that's how she needed to handle this, treating this like Lena was her first. Because of that, the books told her not to expect too much. First loves were so rarely last loves, after all.

It seemed defeatist to actually believe that though, so she figured she'd just have to try her best, _hope_ for the best, and take her lumps if the books prophecies came to past anyway and she ended up failing miserably at this.

In the background, a bell rang. School was out. She turned away from the ocean and looked back towards the school. Tonight was their second date. Brandon, her son, was with his father, Mike, tonight. Mike was going to be the one picking him up. She thought about that. The divorce was still ongoing. Until then, they'd agreed to switch days, like a shift. She didn't like it. But there it was.

She took out her cell phone and dialed Mike. He picked up on the second ring.

"Hi Stef." Mike's voice came over the phone, sounding a little weary, but like he was trying to hide it. "I'm in the school parking lot, if that's what you're calling about. Got here early, okay?"

"Okay. Mike..." She trailed off, her eyes looking blankly off towards the school where the students were filing out of their classrooms. None were in her vicinity yet, as she'd been waiting by the administration building where Lena had her office.

"What?" Mike asked.

"Nothing. Sorry. I'll let you go." She told him, having exactly zero clue what else she could possibly say at the moment. She could say that she'd _had_ to call because she was a mother, but that, or pretty much anything else approaching honesty would have implied that she didn't really trust him to be a responsible enough father to where she'd feel comfortable _not_ checking up on him where their son was concerned. And it would be implied because it was true that she _did_ think that. It just wouldn't be smart to say it. She knew his triggers - what would make him want a drink - all too well by now. She didn't like knowing those things so well, but she did know them. She supposed she was actually lucky that Mike wasn't a mean drunk at all (in her line of work, she knew that for a fact, actually). But it had gotten hard to think of anything besides Brandon as having been all that lucky in her marriage. And that wasn't all Mike's fault by any means, it was obvious it wasn't.

"Okay... Stef?" Mike asked.

"Yes?" Stef replied, hoping he wasn't going to say something reconciliatory again. It always made her feel guilty when he said those 'we can still work this out' type of things... She tried not to feel that way, because she knew it wasn't helpful or even fair to herself, but that was something under the heading of 'easier said than done'. She'd been a lesbian in a heterosexual relationship. That she hadn't started out intending to deceive anyone, even herself, was all true. It didn't change the results though, it just didn't. But what was done was done, and all she could do was move forward.

"Can we... Can we maybe get together and talk later? Maybe after B's gone to bed for the day?" Mike asked.

"Mike, I... have a date... tonight." Stef told him, feeling like she'd been caught a bit flat footed - which was, traditionally, not a good thing for a cop.

"Oh... well, okay, I, uh... maybe tomorrow then?" He offered, sounding a bit like he'd been sucker-punched. Great.

"I um, sure. Lunch?" She offered. 'Be civil', her lawyer had said. Also said not to talk to him except about parenting Brandon, but she knew that not giving Mike a chance to be heard out would hurt his feelings and make the staying civil part harder. So... a nice, quick lunch at a food cart tomorrow would probably be the smartest thing. She wanted to get through this. She wanted as clean a break as she could manage with him. And she knew him well enough by now to know that, a lot of the time, Mike was the kind of person you just needed to explain things to more than once, and give him more than one opportunity to feel heard, before it really would sink in for him. She... supposed she actually did owe that to him.

"That, sure. Lunch would work. I'll, uh, I'll call you." He told her.

"Sounds good." Stef replied.

"Good. Bye then, I guess." Mike replied.

"Bye Mike." She told him quietly.

He hung up and she put away her phone and looked over at the building, debating with herself whether to go in or wait a little while longer for Lena to finish up work for the day.

She stood there a while longer, absently watching students and staff come and go, not really thinking about anything at all.

At one point, her thoughts came back into focus again and she made the decision to walk forward towards the building where her date for the evening was. As she got to the door, someone came out and she stepped to the side, catching the door with her hand and going in.

She walked down the hallway. There were people talking, she could hear them indistinctly in the offices, but, for the moment, the hallway was deserted but for her. She walked down towards Lena's office and heard her talking with someone. The voice was female, young too. So, a student.

She was going to just wait in the hall until the conversation was over, keeping a respectful distance so she wouldn't overhear, but as she leaned against the wall to wait, the conversation apparently ended and the teenage girl Lena had been talking with exited the office.

She was... pink. Really pink. Her clothes were anyway. She was distracted and glum looking though, and Stef wasn't entirely sure if the girl noticed she was there or not. Stef shook her head once and decided it wasn't her business and went over to Lena's half-open door, knocking on it and offering the woman inside a smile when her head angled up and their eyes met. "He there." Stef offered, suddenly feeling a little like an awkward teenage girl herself, though she was stubbornly determined not to let that show.

"Hi!" Lena replied, putting down some papers she was holding and standing up. "Come in, sorry, were you waiting long?" She asked.

Stef accepted the invitation, entering the office. She shook her head. "Not long at all." She replied as Lena came over around the desk and met her eyes again. Everything seemed to kind of stop for both of them then and Stef thought 'to hell with it' and moved in to kiss her.

She held off a beat to make sure Lena was receptive, and then their lips met and it was great. Even better than last time, when they'd said goodnight the day before yesterday. And after that previous kiss she'd been wanting another one to the point of distraction. She closed her eyes, one hand on Lena's chin, the other at her hip, Lena's hands holding her in return, they just sort of made out for how long exactly Stef wasn't sure, but she was feeling a little lightheaded when they stopped.

She wasn't sure who'd stopped first, her or Lena. "Sorry, was that alright for me to do?" Stef asked. "Not too forwards?"

"Definitely not." Lena told her, running a hand through Stef's hair a little, looking into her eyes. There were intentions in those eyes, Stef was somehow sure of it. That made her feel a lot better, because she knew she had intentions too. Maybe that was stupid and cliché like all the books said, but she couldn't help from it anyway.

"That's good to know." Stef told her. "So, are you done for the day? I can just hang out a while more if you need to finish up a few things?" She offered.

"No, I just need to return this file and close down my PC for the day, that's all. Only take a minute or so." She said, turning around to do those things.

"No problem, take your time." Stef replied, putting her hands behind her back and leaning against the wall by the door. Why was she a leaning against walls kind of person all of the sudden? She wasn't usually. Huh.

A few moments later, she and Lena were heading out of the staff building and out towards the water. They planned on taking a walk on the beach down to a nearby restaurant. It was a good half-hour's walk each way, Lena had told her, which suited her fine. It was a beautiful day out and she loved walking on the beach, especially so in this case, obviously...

"So, how's your afternoon been going so far?" Lena asked her. "Any exciting police business since we talked last?" They'd checked in by phone at lunch to make sure there weren't any snags in their evening plans.

Stef laughed. "Well, I guess that depends on your definition of 'exciting' - does a grown man in a lobster costume trying to beat a Honda Civic to death with a foam board sign advertising a happy hour special at the Lobster Shack count?" She'd actually stopped and gawked a few seconds - caught speechless - when she'd seen it.

"...I'd say that counts, yeah." Lena replied, starting to giggle. "That really happened?"

"Oh yes. You think I could make something like that up?" Stef replied, smiling and feeling very light-hearted about everything all of the sudden as they walked down to the beach. The lobster man thing hadn't seemed nearly this funny when it was happening, or after, not until she told it to Lena. That said a lot, didn't it?

"I guess not." Lena replied. "Why exactly did the lobster have it out of the Honda, by the way?"

Stef shook her head and sighed. "From what I can put together, the man in the Honda's passenger seat had been heckling the guy in the lobster outfit, apparently because he and the lobster had a history of some kind, dating back to elementary school I'm given to understand. The exchange became heated, the man threw his coffee on the lobster and..."

"The lobster went postal?" Lena asked, struggling not to laugh at the lobster's expense anymore, which Stef found endearing.

"You said it, not me." Stef replied. "It um, did end up degenerating into a fist fight at some point." Well, half fist fight, half foam claw fight she supposed, but she wasn't going to say it.

"Was anyone hurt?" Lena asked.

"They roughed each other up a bit, yes. When Jim and I came on the scene though, the sirens seemed to take the fight out of them... they both seemed more embarrassed than anything, actually. The guy in the civic was a paralegal, it turns out." Stef informed her.

Lena laughed. "You live an interesting life, Stefanie Foster, I'll give you that."

"Well, sometimes. Coming upon a brawling lobster is, one would hope, a once in a carrier sort of thing to happen." Stef replied.

"One would hope." Lena replied.

"Oh, come on, are you going to tell me you don't have stories like that? You work at a school." Stef countered. "Young humans are, I'm informed by several credible sources, quite a handful at times."

Lena giggled a little again. "I might have a few stories." Lena replied.

"Tell me one?" Stef asked.

"Alright, well... a certain sixth grade girl, who shall remain nameless, did show up on picture day dressed like Minnie Mouse a couple years ago. She blatantly refused to be photographed without her makeup and mouse ears."

Stef was laughing.

"Her parents were called, a group of her friends started protesting that her rights were being violated. It was quite a memorable day, actually." Lena finished.

Stef wanted to say something witty back, but she was laughing too much.

This was definitely going to be a fun date.

* * *

end

and if you have requests or ideas for Fosters stories you'd like me to write, let me know


	4. Wedding Bands, Not Coffee Bans

**"Wedding bands, not coffee bans"**

Credit for inspiring this one goes to Vicky who suggested I write a story explaining how Stef and Lena ended up wearing bracelets after their wedding. It was never explained or mentioned in the show, the bracelets just showed up and looked pretty.

(takes place one month before, and one day after the episode "I Do")

* * *

"So, married, huh?" Callie asked, sitting in the kitchen early one Saturday morning.

"I know." Lena replied, in the process of fixing coffee and making tea. The coffee was for Stef, who was still in bed, and for Callie, who they'd reluctantly granted coffee privileges to as well. The tea was for her. It felt like a tea kind of day. Which, yes, was a good thing. "It's big, right?" She asked.

"Most people would agree with that... Maybe not the kind of people who, I don't know, hate Valentine's Day or something. But, yeah, most people are probably on the 'My wedding is a big deal' bandwagon." Callie agreed, yawning.

"Did you sleep okay?" Lena asked. Callie was irregular as an early riser. Meaning that mostly she was, but sometimes she wasn't one.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I slept okay. Just one of those 'can't shut my brain off' kind of things." She replied.

"I knew it was a mistake letting you have coffee." Lena said, more to cheer her adopted-daughter-to-be up than for any true leaning towards denying her coffee.

Callie's eyes widened a little. "So, what kind of ring are you getting her? Do you have one picked out already?" Callie asked, eying the coffee pot speculatively and hoping to distract Lena from any thoughts of coffee bans.

"You know, I've been thinking about that, actually." Lena replied thoughtfully, setting the water on to boil and leaning against the counter, the coffee machine already having been started. "Stef and I were talking about it the other day, and we're actually supposed to go ring shopping together tomorrow. I'm having second thoughts though."

"About marrying her?" Callie asked, really hoping that wasn't the case. Stef and Lena were great together.

"What? No, of course not. I just meant about the rings. If we really need them. I mean, yes, it's tradition and everything, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But does that have to mean it's right for me? Right for us?" She asked, meeting Callie's eyes, curious what she'd say. Callie, while perhaps not having the best sense of judgment in general, could be surprisingly wise and insightful at times. She had a knack for cutting through to the heart of the matter.

"No, I guess not. But, I mean, it does make a statement. Like, you see a ring, you know." Callie offered.

"That's certainly true." Lena offered. "But it's not a specific message though. If someone sees two women with rings on their fingers, it's just as likely other people will assume they're married to men. I'm not sure you can really wear anything that says 'I'm married to her'... well, except tee-shirts." Lena allowed with an amused smile.

"That's true I guess." Callie considered. "Yeah, so, what? Are you just going to do without? I guess it would save money. When you think about it, it is a lot of money to spend on something that's use is only symbolic and nothing else."

"That is something else to consider." Lena admitted. "I do like the idea of having tangible symbols though. I guess I'm just wondering how much of a conformist I have to be. We have to be."

"Mmm... So, what then? Bracelets? Earrings maybe?" Callie ventured, now caught up in the topic.

"Yeah, maybe so." Lena allowed.

"What do you think Stef will say about all of this?" Callie asked, noticing that the coffee was now ready and getting up with her cup to go fill said cup. Hopefully, Lena wouldn't interfere.

"Hmm, you know, I really have no idea." Lena admitted.

"No subliminal telepathic communication going on then?" Callie asked absently as she took a grateful sip of her coffee, loving the warmth spreading through her as the coffee went down.

"Afraid not." Lena answered, an indulgent smile coming to her lips unbidden.

"That's a shame. Something like that would really come in handy." Callie answered, taking another sip of coffee.

"...I like the idea of bracelets though." Lena offered thoughtfully as she poured water for her tea.

She heard sounds from upstairs. Probably Stef. Excepting Callie, none of their kids usually woke very early on weekends.

(...and so it was, months later...)

Lena was lying in bed, her wedding dress was... on the floor somewhere, she imagined. It was the morning after the wedding, and Stef was taking a morning shower. Lena had been tempted to join her, but she'd begged off, wanting to just lay here and feel the afterglow a little longer.

She brought her hand up to eye level and gazed with no small amount of fascination at the wedding band on her finger. She remembered Stef slipping it onto her finger yesterday, she remembered that kiss... oh, that had been a very nice kiss. She sighed a little, feeling happy.

She turned over onto her back, her eyes focusing on nothing. She thought back about the rings. Stef had ended up liking Callie's idea about the bracelets a lot, as it had turned out. She remembered, she and Callie had gone together to pick out Stef's, with Stef taking Mariana along to shop for hers.

But, then, of course, her mom had come by and offered her her grandmother's ring. It had been such a nice gesture. And, when she'd heard about it, Stef's mom had brought a great-aunt's ring into things. Of course neither she nor Stef had wanted to tell either of their mothers that they shouldn't have bothered, so they'd been back to exchanging rings again. Which, Lena had to admit to herself, holding the ring up to look at again, she found she wasn't minding in the least.

They still had the bracelets though, in boxes, over on the night stand.

A minute or two later, Stef came in, in the process of drying her hair. Not wearing a thing. Lena found her eyes taking in the sight very appreciatively...

Stef laughed and smiled. "See something you like?" She drawled a little playfully.

"You're right about that..." Lena said distractedly, meeting her wife's eyes and returning the smile.

"So... we're married now, apparently." Stef said, going to sit on the bed. Lena sat up too. "How do you feel about that? Any regrets?" She asked, still feeling playful, apparently.

Lena moved forward and kissed her, just gently at first, but then with feeling enough to wake her wife up fully, if the shower had happened to leave any corner of her wife's brain still in the land of dreams. "Mmm..." Lena hummed softly as, at length, the kiss parted. "Does that answer your question?"

"...Jee, I don't know... Maybe you should do that again? Just to make sure, you understand." Stef replied softly in that way that tended to make Lena's toes curl.

Lena was happy to oblige, and they ended up laying down again on their sides, making out for a long while, in no hurry to stop.

Long minutes later, Lena sighed, running a hand through her wife's still-damp hair. "Wait here." She said, getting up to sitting and then going to retrieve the bracelet boxes.

"I thought we were going to return those?" Stef asked curiously, sitting up again.

"We still can. But, I don't know, I thought maybe we could wear them anyway? Moms don't need to know where they came from." Lena reasoned, smiling a little at using their kids' term for them for her and Stef's respective moms. She reminded herself that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to say that in front of anyone but Stef though. It would just be... weird. "I haven't even seen mine yet, you realize."

"Nor have I seen mine." Stef agreed, accepting the box from Lena that she and Mariana had purchased together.

"So, you want to?" Lena asked, feeling decidedly hopeful and in the mood to be needlessly romantic. After all, if you couldn't be needlessly romantic the morning after your wedding, when else would you?

"I'm game." Stef replied, smiling, swallowing, and feeling like this was naked wedding deja vu. Naked wedding deja vu was a good thing though, definitely it was.

Lena held out the box she held, and Stef held hers out in return.

* * *

End

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	5. More Saturday Mornings, Please?

**"More Saturday Mornings, Please?"**

* * *

Groggily, Stef woke up and sat up one morning, blinking and feeling blurry. "What time is it?" She asked... as it turned out, nobody, because she got no reply. She reached a hand out beside her absently for Lena, thinking her wife was probably just still asleep, but felt only empty bed.

She fell back on the bed with a woof, her head landing on the pillow. "What day is it, anyway?" She asked, again, as it turned out, to nobody. "Alright, brain, you can start working now, okay?" She asked her brain.

She turned her head to the side, saw the offending empty bed, and felt her brain slowly starting to function in an awake way. Why was she so tired still? Oh, right. She'd been out on a call that had gone long last night. A domestic disturbance... Really, why did people have to try to come up with less offensive sounding euphemisms for everything, she wondered?

A shooting at a school was a 'tragedy', not murdered children. The death of a loved one was a 'loss'. And a man beating his wife and children half to death and making a run for it? That was a 'domestic disturbance'. She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to force herself into a better mood.

Some minutes later, she felt she might have managed it reasonably well. It was a Saturday morning, she realized. A day off. She belatedly looked at the clock and saw it was almost nine thirty. Lena must have just wanted to let her sleep in. She sat up and yawned, stretching her hands above her head and arching her back.

She pulled back the covers and got out of bed next.

Morning necessities and a luxuriously long shower later, she was headed downstairs and feeling more genuinely optimistic about things.

She heard the all-too-predictable sounds of a video game being played. She poked her head in and saw it was Callie and Jude. Callie was smiling and joking with her brother as they tried to... apparently sneak up on a tank. She shook her head a little and had one of those 'I'm old now, apparently' moments. She despised those moments... but then, she supposed, most people would despise those moments. It was probably why so many old people got the reputation for being cranky. That and the lower back pain. Thankfully she didn't have that quite yet... or, at least, she didn't today. It had happened a few times. Not that she would admit to it if given the option not to.

Turning away from the suburban virtual warfare slash sibling bonding time (she knew Callie probably wouldn't have chosen to play a video game involving tanks if it hadn't been for her brother), she headed for the kitchen and found... Mariana... cooking tofu and vegetables on the stovetop while listening to music from her phone with earbuds. She could tell that her daughter was listening to music because she was doing that sort of half-dancing and humming along thing that was generally indicative of Mariana listening to music while doing other tasks.

It was nice... or, kind of nice, that Mariana was on a health food kick these days. True, it made mealtime a little more complicated sometimes, but, really, all in all? There were a lot worse things a teenager could choose to focus their attention on. She should be very grateful.

She spotted coffee and went in.

Mariana jumped a little and giggled a little at the fact that she'd jumped a little when she saw her. "Oh, morning mom." Her daughter said, taking out her earbuds as she spoke.

"Good morning." Stef replied, a little of an amused smile on her lips. "Momma's around the house somewhere, I assume?" She asked.

"Oh, of course. I don't know where though." She admitted. "Hey, you haven't eaten yet. We both slept in. Want some of my tofu stuff? I'm making plenty." She offered.

Stef considered a moment. "Sure, I'll give it a try. Thanks, Mariana." She replied. It was always good to support them, and, really, it wasn't like eating healthy was a bad thing. And freshly cooked tofu was at least a lot better than the stuff in the packages. She'd tried some from a package. She would not be doing that again.

"Great. It's um." She looked at the pot. "It should just be a few more minutes."

Stef nodded and sipped more coffee. She'd been about to say something when Brandon came it. "Oh, hey mom." He greeted, going to the refrigerator and taking out a bottle of water.

"Good morning." Stef replied. "You're going to the beach today, right? With your band?" She asked, only now remembering that he'd told them about his plans for that.

"Yeah." He said. "And I'm actually running late."

She smiled. "Well, then, don't let me hold you up. Go. Go." She shooed him.

"Thanks mom. Bye." He said, snagging a bag of chips and leaving.

"You know, I just realized something: I need to spend more time at the beach." Mariana said, getting out some spices from the cupboard.

"And so say we all." Stef echoed, pushing away from the counter and going in search of her missing wife.

Whom she found, moments later, laying in the sun on a lounge chair in the back yard, reading a book.

Saturday mornings. They should really have more of them, shouldn't they? Stef mused to herself as she wondered down the steps, slipping off her sandals and liking the way the grass felt on her bare feet.

Lena looked up as Stef came over. "Morning, love." Stef greeted.

"Good morning." Lena smiled to her. "Sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you." Stef replied gracefully and gratefully as she sat down cross-legged on the grass next to her wife's lounge chair.

Lena put down her book and turned over onto her side. "Isn't it a beautiful day?" She asked.

"From where I'm sitting? Definitely." Stef replied, smiling happily.

* * *

(end)

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